Peoria Riverfront Museum got sneak peek of Ken Burns' Dust Bowl

A Peoria audience this week got a preview of the upcoming Ken Burns program on the Dust Bowl at the Peoria Riverfront Museum.

The Dust Bowl special will air on WTVP-TV Channel 47 from 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday and continues 7 to 9 p.m. Monday, said Jennifer Davis, development director for WTVP, adding that the program would be repeated each night from 9 to 11 p.m.

A Peoria audience this week got a preview of the upcoming Ken Burns program on the Dust Bowl at the Peoria Riverfront Museum.

The Dust Bowl special will air on WTVP-TV Channel 47 from 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday and continues 7 to 9 p.m. Monday, said Jennifer Davis, development director for WTVP, adding that the program would be repeated each night from 9 to 11 p.m.

In addition to getting an advance look at the Depression era documentary, the 150 people attending the preview heard from Amy Scott, Bradley University history professor, who spoke about the American tradition of documentary photography.

"In 1935, the Historical Section of the Resettlement Administration (later renamed the Farm Security Administration) hired a small group of photographers, including portrait studio photographer Dorothea Lange and unemployed college student Arthur Rothstein, to document the effects of depression, drought, and dust on the nation's farmers and agricultural workers," said Scott.

"The New Deal photographers worked to document the Depression in photographs that elicited an emotional response from the public and consequently mobilized public opinion in support of New Deal relief and recovery programs in rural America," she said.

Many of the photographs have been digitized and can be viewed on the Library of Congress American Memory website, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html, said Scott, noting she has a personal connection to the Dust Bowl.

"I'm the daughter/grand daughter of Dust Bowl survivors in Oklahoma and New Mexico. My mother's parents were farmers in Creek County, Okla. My father was born in 1930 in Clayton, N.M. He remembers the dust storms, and the lengths that his parents went to try to keep dust from invading their home," she said.

"Despite his parents' efforts, my dad and his siblings suffered from dust pneumonia, and his sister almost died from it. Growing up hearing their stories of survival made me sympathetic to the suffering of the people of the Southern Plains during the 1930s but also impressed upon me their toughness and their optimism that better days would come," said Scott.

She acknowledged Burns, whose previous PBS documentaries have included looks at the Civil War, World War II and a history of jazz in America, have helped create a greater appreciation for history.

"Burns has done more than anyone else to establish the conventions of historical documentary filmmaking. His films have prompted millions of people to explore American history and to debate the meaning of the American experience," she said.